BBC woos Asians with an everyday story of Punjabi folk

The melting pot of inner-city Birmingham is a long way from the fictional village of Ambridge, yet the BBC is hoping that it will provide the perfect backdrop for the "Asian Archers".

Instead of village halls and farmers' markets, Silver Street, the corportion's new £1 million radio show, will feature a backdrop of curry houses, fabric shops and banghra music.

The BBC hopes that the show, which takes its name from Birmingham's jewellery quarter, will have an appeal beyond Britain's Asian community.

Producers, who have been seeking advice from colleagues on The Archers, hope that the show will capitalise on the success of television shows such as The Kumars at No 42 and will eventually move on to Radio 4.

Key characters include Mushtaq Jilani, a Pakistani-born Muslim and grocery store entrepreneur, and an aspiring footballer called Jagjiwan, who is determined to break into the Premiership and the England team.

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The show will also chart the experiences of Rita, a mother of four who works in a call centre, and Pradeep, a chef at an Indian restaurant. James Peries, the programme's editor, said that the show would be fast-paced with lots of music.

"We are aware that the audience for Silver Street does not listen avidly to the afternoon play on Radio 4. The audience is probably going to be judging the programme alongside Coronation Street or EastEnders. The Archers is a rural programme. It has a particular style and Silver Street is set in a fast-moving city.

"We have been working closely with The Archers and hope to go on doing so, getting advice and tips from them, but it would not be a good thing if we were compared because we are such different programmes."

Mr Peries said that the programme would reflect the real experiences of Asians in Britain but would not be without its surprises.

"Some of the characters will confound the audience's expectations. Sometimes we will do the obvious thing because that is life, but there are other times when we will need to twist the plot and be more original.

"We will definitely deal with arranged marriages because they are still such a big feature of people's lives." The programme will be broadcast on the BBC's Asian Network from Monday to Friday, with a weekend omnibus, beginning on May 24. It will be recorded at the same studios as The Archers at Pebble Mill in Birmingham. The BBC believes that the new series can capitalise on the popularity of Asian culture as shown by the success of the film Bend it like Beckham and the television comedy The Kumars at No 42.

The show has been welcomed by Asian fans of The Archers. Vaqar Abbas, a 35-year-old Birmingham property consultant, said: "There is a danger that Asians are perceived by their religion rather than being seen for what they are. If a soap can show Asian culture as it is rather than tainting it as religion, it will be a good thing."

Khalid Mahmood, Birmingham's first Asian MP, also welcomed the show. "It shows the Asian community is integrated into British society," he said. "Asians were seen at one time as shop owners but they are now playing mainstream roles in commerce and culture."

The decision to set the show in Birmingham has not been without controversy, even though parts of the city such as Handsworth and Sparkbrook have majority ethnic populations. Asian leaders in Leicester believed the show should have been set there.

Hussein Suleman, a Leicester councillor, said: "This is a great shame. We're the most multi-cultural city in the country and I would have thought Leicester would be the ideal place for the show to be set. The city is undergoing a revolution with new regeneration."

Silver Street will have a long way to go to match The Archers, which has five million listeners. The Asian Network, launched in 2002, is aimed at at 16 to 35-year-olds and registers a weekly audience of 500,000.

John Milton-Whatmore, the chairman of Mediawatch UK, a viewers' organisation, welcomed the BBC's commitment to minority audiences, but he suggested that the corporation was wrong to spend large amounts of money on a digital station few people listened to. "The BBC should take its commitment to Asian viewers seriously and air this programme on a mainstream station like Radio 4," he said.